PAGE 14A HERITAGE FLORIDA JEWISH NEWS, JANUARY 12, 2018
STR/AFP/Getty Images
Iranian students protesting at the University of Tehran, Dec. 30, 2017.
By Ron Kampeas
WASHINGTON (JTA)--Ira-
nians are taking to the streets
in spontaneous demonstra-
tions across the country to
protest government corrup-
tion and a failing economy.
The depth and breadth of
popular Iranian anger have
taken the West by surprise,
nowhere more so than in
Washington, where the focus
on Iran since Donald Trump
assumed the presidency has
been on whether he would
preserve the 2015 nuclear
deal.
Until Dec. 28, this was the
calculus: Would Trump kill
the agreement or be content
with dismissing it as "the
worst deal" in history? The
deal forged between Iran and
six major powers trades sanc-
tions relief for a rollback of
Iran's nuclear program.
Now the question is
whether Trump sees the
demonstrations and their
repression by Tehran as an ad-
ditional spur--or even the last
straw--that would convince
him to pull the United States
out of the pact.
On Dec. 28, anti-inflation
protests broke out in Mash-
had, Iran's second-largest city
and generally a stronghold
of support for the theocracy.
They quickly spread, fueled
by anger not just at economic
mismanagement but at Iran's
military adventurism over-
seas. At least 20 protesters
have been killed.
The feared Revolutionary
Guard Corps has j oined in the
crackdown and the country's
supreme leader, Ayatollah
Ali Khamenei, has sought to
blame outsiders for spurring
the protests.
Trump has yet to say how
the protests affect the nuclear
deal, but he has condemned
the crackdown and warned
Iranian leaders that he is
watching their actions.
"Such respect for the people
of Iran as they try to take back
their corrupt government,"
Trump said Wednesday on
Twitter, his seventh tweet
about the uprising since it
began a week earlier. "You
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will see great support from
the United States at the ap-
propriate time!"
In aWashington Post op-ed
published Thursday berating
the Obama administration
for its handling of Iran, Vice
President Mike Pence said that
additional actions definitely
were an option, given the
latest protests.
"We have already issued
new sanctions on Iran's Is-
lamic Revolutionary Guard
Corps, and the president is
weighing additional actions
to punish the regime for its
belligerent behavior and as-
sault on its own citizens,"
Pence wrote.
Would those include re-
suming the narrow nuclear-
related sanctions relaxed
as a result of the Iran deal?
Pence did not spell that out,
but he blamed the Iran deal
for enriching the regime and
enabling it to crack down on
its citizens.
In mid-January, Trump has
two deadlines looming:
Whether to certify Iran's
compliance with the deal:
Under a 2015 law passed
by a Congress skeptical of
President Barack Obama's
agreement, the deal requires
certification every 90 days.
Trump refused to certify the
last time the 90 days were up,
in October, effectively punting
the issue to Congress. Doing
so again would have the same
effect; it would be up to Con-
gress to reimpose sanctions.
Congress demurred last
time because no one at the
time wanted responsibility
(JTA)--Four current and
former flight attendants have
filed a federal lawsuit against
Delta Air Lines alleging that
the company's management
has "an anti-Jewish, Hebrew
and ethnic Israeli attitude."
The suit was filed Tuesday
in U.S. District Court in New
York's Westchester County.
The plaintiffs worked on the
airline's New York-Tel Aviv
route. Two are Jewish and two
say there were disciplined or
subjected to a hostile work en-
vironment for their association
with Jewish flight attendants
and passengers, attorney Brian
Mildenberg said in a statement
issued Tuesday.
In the suit, the plaintiffs
allege that Delta management
"through words and deeds,
operate under an express
for killing a deal that much
of the world believes is work-
ing. Widespread revulsion at
oppression of the protesters,
if it intensifies, could change
that calculus.
Whether to waive the
nuclear sanctions: The deal
requires the U.S. president to
do. The sanctions are renew-
able every 120 days under laws
passed early in the Obama
administration. Trump may
also reimpose the nuclear sanc-
tions by executive order at any
time. Not waiving the nuclear
sanctions or reimposing them
would effectively pull the United
States out of the deal.
We asked experts who favor
and oppose the Iran deal two
questions: How would the
protests influence Trump's
decision-making on whether
to stick with the deal? And is
there a connection between
the deal and the protests?
Here's what they had to say.
The protests may be the
straw that breaks the deal's
back.
Mark Dubowitz, the director
of the Foundation for Defense
of Democracies, who has
counseled the White House
on its Iran strategy, said the
protests could spur Congress
and America's European allies
to finally take up Trump's chal-
lenge in October. That's when
the president refused to certify
Iranian compliance with the
deal and essentially said his goal
is to "fix it or nix it"--amend
the terms or walk away.
Dubowitz said the protests
"may increase the incentive
for all sides to come together
and find a legislative solution."
"The protests reinforce the
administration's view that the
Iranian regime is an odious,
expansionist and destructive
force in the Middle East," he
said. "Its foreign adventurism
and domestic repression must
be confronted using all instru-
ments of American power."
Richard Goldberg, a former
top Senate aide who helped
shape the nuclear sanctions,
said it made little sense for
Trump to waive them now.
"With people pouring into
the streets crying out for a new
regime, it's hard to imagine
how the president waives
sanctions and keeps money
flowing into the regime's
coffers," he said. "Whether
you were a supporter or op-
ponent of the nuclear deal,
.mI
assumption that ethnic Jews
and Israelis, as employees and
passengers, cannot be trusted,
are aggressive and inappropri-
ate, and engage in what are
deemed to be 'strange' be-
haviors by conducting prayers
on the flight and requiring
special dietary accommoda-
tions (kosher meals)."
The lawsuit also claims that
Delta has punished Jewish
and other flight attendants,
including with suspension or
termination, for legally shar-
ing their companion travel
passes with Jewish individuals
who fly to Tel Aviv "solely on
the basis of their Jewish and
Israel ethnicity and ancestry,"
It also says Delta has punished
them for being Jewish or for
their association with Jews
and Israelis, "and has either
nothing should hold us back
from siding with the people
and against their oppressors"
The protests are exactly
the wrong time to end the
nuclear deal.
Dan Shapiro, who was
Obama's ambassador to Israel
from 2011 until ayearago, said
scrapping the deal would play
into Khamenei's claims that
outside actors are trying to
influence the protests.
"It would undercut one of
the areas where protesters are
rightfully blaming the regime
for squandering relief on sup-
porting terrorists and foreign
adventurers," said Shapiro,
who is now a fellow at Israel's
Institute for National Security
Studies.
Daryl Kimball, who directs
t he Arms Control Association,
said killing the deal would be
a gift to Khamenei.
"If Trump decides to re-
impose the nuclear-related
sanctions waived under the
terms of the Joint Compre-
hensive Plan of Action, he will
be creating a nonprolifera-
tion and security crisis and
providing top Iranian offi-
cials-particularly Ayatollah
Ali Khamenei--a propaganda
bonanza," Kimball said. "If
Trump unilaterally reimposes
all the nuclear sanctions, it
will allow the Iranian regime
to blame the U.S. for the
regime's failures to address
the grievances of those who
are marching in the streets."
Additionally, Shapiro said,
itwas not in theWest's interest
to free an Iranian regime al-
ready rattled by the protests to
accelerate a nuclear breakout.
The Iran deal, for at least 10
years, keeps Iran a year away
from a nuclear bomb.
If sanctions were lifted,
he said, "We could be right
back to Iran two to three
months away from a nuclear
breakout."
Alireza Nader, a senior Iran
expert at the Rand Corp a
think tan k that frequently con-
suits with the Pentagon, said it
made no sense to rattle the Iran
deal when there were many
other non-nuclear sanctions
options that could squeeze
the regime. Taking Iran off
the list of Muslim-majority
nations whose citizens are
banned entry to the United
States would be a signal to
Iranians that the United States
is heeding their plight.
restricted their employment
rights, denied them promo-
tions, or subjected them to
harassment and abuse, for
pretextual reasons."
Among the incidents cited,
according to reports and first
reported by TMZ, is a flight
attendant who says she was
fired in March because she is
Jewish. While the company
says it fired her because she
missed a flight, the woman
says she was on maternity
leave at the time.
In a second incident, a
non-Jewish flight attendant
who shared her travel com-
panion pass with a longtime
Jewish friend was suspended
without pay and had her travel
privileges revoked. She alleges
that it is because the friend
was Jewish.
Another measure would
be to remove sanctions on
U.S. information firms doing
business in Iran, Nader said.
That would "make sure that
Iranians have access to tech-
nology that gets information
in and out of Iran," he said.
On Thursday, a top Trump
administration official said
freeing technology use for
Iranians was on the agenda.
"It is absolutely a core U.S.
interest that this informa-
tion flow into Iran and the
operation of key social media
platforms like Telegram, like
Instagram, is preserved,"
Andrew Peek, the deputy as-
sistant secretary of state who
handles Iran, told the BBC's
Persian service. He also said
that sanctions were in the
works targeting individuals
who violated human rights.
The nuclear deal helped get
us here, in a bad way.
Deal opponents say the
nuclear deal freed up cash
that the Iranian regime is
now using to fund its military
adventurism--and to repress
protests.
In his op-ed, Pence said the
pact "flooded the regime's
coffers with tens of billions of
dollars in cash--money that
it could use to repress its own
people and support terrorism
across the wider world."
The nuclear deal helped get
us here, in a good way.
Obama-era officials sent
mixed messages on the deal
when it was being negotiated.
Some, like Secretary of State
John Kerry, hoped it would
moderate the regime. Oth-
ers, like Treasury Secretary
Jacob Lew, argued that tak-
ing a nuclear threat off the
table--however temporar-
ily-made it easier to squeeze
a recalcitrant Iran for its other
bad acts.
Nader of the Rand Corp.
said the latter argument ap-
pears to have been validated,
to a degree: Non-nuclear
sanctions that Obama kept
in place and Trump has re-
inforced have afflicted Iran's
economy, helping to spur the
uprising. But the real villain
is the regime's incompetence
and corruption.
"The economy in Iran is
abysmal, and U.S. sanctions
have contributed to that," he
said. "But the No. 1 blame
should go to the Iranian re-
gime for being corrupt."
Delta responded in a state-
ment that it "strongly con-
demns the allegations of
discrimination described in
this suit and will defend itself
vigorously against them. As
a global airline that brings
people across the world to-
gether every day, Delta values
diversity in all aspects of its
business and has zero toler-
ance for discrimination."
Delta's New York-Tel Aviv
line was discontinued after
the 9/11 attack in 2001 and
reinstated in 2008. The airline
also has a direct flight to Tel
Aviv from Atlanta.
Following its merger with
Northwest Airlines in 2008,
Delta dropped a Minnesota
rabbi from its frequent flier
program for earning too many
miles.